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My Puppy Attacked Me Today

Hi everyone,

I am new here and need some advice please.
We have a new puppy named Mak, he is an English Staffordshire Bull
Terrier.

He has been a loving little puppy and we have just got him on the leash finally he is willing to go for a walk.
Well that was until today, when he went beserk, was biting my feet then
had a go at my hand. I am sure if he had a hold of it any longer he would have cut open the skin.

Now I am a little scared of him, and also considering we have a 1 yr old baby in the house.
Yes we are taking him to puppy training in 2 weeks... He is 11 weeks old now.

Hi Toni,
It is very hard to give advise without seeing what really happened, you need to get to someone with knowledge who can watch you interact with the pup and advise you.

In the meantime do not allow rough play which can escalate into a real attack, pups also make 'mock' attacks in play and can growl and bite in play, if you did not have broken skin I wonder if he was not just doing this ?

You need to make sure the puppy is respecting you, a lack of respect can lead to an uncontrollable dog for he will do as he likes not as you say.

Get help as soon as you can, but hands on help, remember that people cannot give accurate help without seeing you interact with him, you quite possibly caused the behaviour and need to be helped with how you handle him.

Without seeing what your puppy is actually doing it sound to me like a normal puppy tantrum. I was taught if my pup was getting out of hand nipping and what not to yip high and loud like a pup and walk away.

Sounds like he might have been redirecting some type of anxiety associated with the leash and walk. Hard to say, without more detail. How have you prepared him for his walks?

Whatever it is you need to stop it now, it is not good being scared of him. Can you talk to his breeder?

Good point what about the breeder, they should be more than willing to help with advise & maybe even know local trainers that could help.
You know the worse thing you can do is let the pup know your afraid of it.
If a pup uses it's teeth in an inaproprate manner I yelp & turn my back on the pup & give it no attention what so ever till it settles down.

I treated my pups a little differently.
They got a stern NO and I gripped their muzzle.
A mother disciplines her pups with a snout grip or grip and growl. (not a hard grip but a firm one they can not move away from for a few secs.)

They are now nearly 15 months old and their mother still does this at times but I don't have to anymore. They learned pretty quickly too, with me.

Any posts made under the name of Di_dee1 one can be used by anyone as I do not give a rats.

yea, it is a matter of what works for you and your dog. The key is being very consistent with whatever method you choose, doing it EVERY time it happens.

definitely agree with DI, our dog Roxy took a while to respond to some of the correction, the problem was that my wife was soft on her and would let her get away with some of her bad behavior some times. As long as you stay strong and follow through with your decided action plan you'll do ok.